Tales of Draeth

Work In Progress

Arriving at Lighthouse Island in the dead of night by the drunken rowing of Old Man Longoar, the Phandolin Adventurers make their way to the house of Brom Ironfell. The blacksmith owes Syllo, the party’s newest companion, a favor — and because Syllo is indebted to the band of adventurer’s for saving his life, he spends the favor in their stead.

-Asked to stay overnight
-In the morning we went to the Lighthouse estate
-We asked to see the Keeper of the Light
-We waited for 30 minutes
-Heloise seduced the guard watching us, brought him to the docks.
-Heloise convinced the guard to unmoor the boat and sail to the high seas.
-First, she tried to convince the guard that the boat was on fire. When that didn’t work, she cast Charm Person.
-Kip distracts the guard on land by Minor Illusion-ing a scroll with the seal of the Keeper of the Light.
-They find Longoar on their boat, initially having mistaken him for a bundle of rags.
-They convince Longoar to help them sail south.
-Continuing her seductive deception, Heloise leaves the guard, Edwin Teech, stranded on a desert isle. We have not seen the last of him.
-Longoar and Heloise sail to the coast, landing in the outskirts of Phandolin.

-Meanwhile, Kip, Baiste, and Syllo make their way to meet with the Keeper of the Light.
-The party demands information about the visitor from the KotL.
-The KotL lets slip that the visitor is Baiste’s brother.
-Lil B intimidates the KotL into disclosing that Alec, Baiste’s brother, is trapped in the dungeon.
-Syllo tries to prevent Baiste from grappling the KotL, but he fails.
-Baiste rushes the KotL, knocking him off the balcony and catching him by his leg. He demands that Alec be brought before them.
-Alec is brought up, chained and blindfolded. Kip uses his invisible hand to grab the keys from the KotL
-There is hesitation about whether or not Alec should be released. After the two guards in front of Alec draw their swords, Kip decides to release Alec.
-As soon as Alec is released, he casts fireball, immolating the entire room. Kip somehow manages to dodge the spell but the whole room is on fire, and everybody in the room has taken a significant amount of damage.
-Lil B jumps off the balcony with the KotL, killing the KotL and badly hurting Baiste.
-Guard at the bottom of the balcony, Baiste is already badly injured, he’s just rolling around trying to dodge.
-Kip and Alec run down, the guards chase after them.
-Kip tries to hit the guard fighting Baiste, misses.
-Alec tries to fireball the guards that are chasing them, but misses.
-Kip flaming hands all the guards.
-Baiste gets knocked out, falls unconscious.
-Kip is being attacked by three guards, one is grappling Alec so he can’t cast.
-Kip runs back upstairs, hoping to juke the guards by escaping through the flaming balcony.
-Kip runs through the burning room, jumps off, his boots carrying him an inordinate distance. He jumps on top of the guard grappling Alec, stabs him, but it’s not enough to take him down.
-As the rest of the guards run down, Kip bolts away.
-Kip Freezing Bolts guards chasing him, they all pursue.
-Kip’s plan is to swim away, knowing the guards cannot chase him in their armor. But they have rowboats. Kip strips off all his armor, leaves his gear on the shore, and frantically starts swimming away. Not having swum much before, he almost immediately drowns. Confused, hurt, and desperate, Kip puts on the ring of Heqanakht.
-Immediately, Kip feels as though a gray veil has been draped over his eyes. The world seems muffled and silent.
-An immense power seems to bubble inside Kip, spreading through his body and concentrating at his mouth.
-He finds his mouth chanting an incantation thousands of syllables long, all compressed into one word of power.
-Flame bursts from him in all directions, a forty foot wall, immolating the entirety of the island and killing all inhabitants (except Alec and Syllo)
-Next, rising from the water, Kip finds his body contorting. It is as though he is being drawn and quartered. His joints snap into new and painful positions, his flesh transmogrifying, growing to a height of six fee tall.
-Heqanakht al-Qa looks down upon himself and smiles. He reaches within to grasp at whatever remains of Kip – his soul. He drags it out and rips it into pieces.
- In a brilliant flash of light, the freed Heqanakht al-Qa, restored to his true form, teleports away to a location unknown, leaving the island a smoldering ruin and the ocean steaming for half a mile out to sea.
-Fuck

In Which Two New Adventurers Join in the Search, an a Fight Breaks Out in a Small Town

In Which Two New Adventurers Join in the Search, and a Fight Breaks Out in a Small Town.

Our troupe of guards arrives in the small town of Phanalin with little fanfare. Eager to learn if Jeb and Jacobus have completed their mission, they stop to ask the first person they encounter if they saw the carriage arrive in town. This stranger is none other than Euphemia the tone-deaf, a halfling troubadour applying her trade outside of the towns largest tavern. She discloses that not only has she seen the wagon in town, but the two drivers are staying in the tavern behind her. Heloise, in an act of what can only be taken as vanity, tosses an absurd sum of gold at the small chanteuse in an attempt to hire her as a personal minstrel. Euphemia accepts as much out of curiosity as good business sense.

Confident that the caravan is safe, the group divides to accomplish various errands in town. Baiste slinks off in pursuit of some clandestine ends, while Odo and Heloise seek out a shop to pawn off some of the treasure found in the goblin cave. Odo carries most of the coin, while Heloise holds various baubles of unknown value. The transaction goes smoothly until Odo suggests that they ask the shopkeeper to appraise a small jade frog found among klarg’s possesions. Heloise attempts to conceal to frog, and denies that there ever was a frog in the first place. Odo, having found the treasure in the first place knows otherwise. Heloise continues to deny having the frog, and a heated argument ensues. Heloise tries to walk off with the frog, and in a fit of rage Odo strikes her. At this provocation, Heloise readies a spell to cast in retaliation. As the air crackles with magic, Odo draws his blade. Before a blow is struck, the pair are diverted by an alarming realization. While the two were bickering over a small frog, Odo’s coin-purse had been cut from his belt!

The thief is a gnome named Kip “piffenpoffen” Zippenpoof, who is doing his best to distance himself from his victims. On the street outside the shop, Odo is shouting. A crowd quickly forms, and Odo offers half of the contents of his purse to whosoever finds the item or the perpetrator. With the promise of reward, the whole town is looking for Odo’s bag. Kip, fearing discovery stows the bag behind some stairs. As Odo approaches, Kip shouts that he’s found the bag. Odo, quite unsuspectingly, thanks Kip and promptly pays him half of the purses contents. Kip, who has been surveying these curious strangers since they arrived in town, sees a way to learn more by expanding his deception. He manages to convince Odo that he is also in the employ of Gundren Rockseeker.

The group re-convenes at the inn, now consisting of the surviving guards, Kip, Euphemia, and the two brothers. With Gundren missing in action, they decide to seek the dwarf’s two brothers, his business partners, who are supposed to be camping in the wilderness, perhaps surveying some expedition. The search is fruitless dragging on for days, still worse, the party is held up upon their return to town. A posse of armed men, all wearing the red arm band of the Red Brand Ruffians is waiting to collect a toll. The Ruffians are the closest thing in Phandalin to a government, thriving off of protection money and road “tolls”. When tension escalates between the robbers and the questant guards, Odo challenges the largest of them to a duel for free passage. The ruffians accept, but when one of their number is slain by perceived foul-play, they attack the group. The ruffians are vanquished, with cheering from those townspeople who witnessed the affair.

Though the townsfolk cheer, the party expects that the RBR will not their members deaths go unanswered. Anxious to get out of town, the group decides to seek the folk hero Daren Ettermath <?> for his council on the surrounding area and to possible whereabouts of the Rockseekers.

In Which Four Ragtag Caravan Guards, Ambushed by Goblins in the Foothills of Phandalin, Track their Assailants to a Cave, Defeat a Vile & Brutish Bugbear, and Begin the Quest to Find the Missing Dwarf

In Which Four Ragtag Caravan Guards, Ambushed by Goblins in the Foothills of Phandalin, Track their Assailants to a Cave, Defeat a Vile & Brutish Bugbear, and Begin the Quest to Find the Missing Dwarf

The curtain opens on a wagon, its wheels cutting deep ruts into the soggy dirt road as it departs the bustling town of Cormyr. It is constructed out of sturdy timber and its enclosed design offers no windows or canvas that would allow the curious a peek at its contents. In fact, the only access to the heart of the carriage is a firmly locked rear door. The beasts that are pulling this heavy wooden contraption through the mud are driven by two armed men, brothers known as Jeb and Jacobus Brighthorn.

But this caravan’s defenses do not end here. Accompanying the wagon are four guards on foot. They are as ignorant of each other’s identities as they are of the contents of the wagon, each of them drawn into the task of protecting the carriage by their mutual acquaintance, Gundren Rockseeker. This Dwarf is the employer of the guards and owner of the caravan, and he is very invested in it’s safe arrival. Each of the party expects a handsome payment of 10 gold pieces upon reaching the caravan’s destination, the remote town of Phandalin.

As Cormyr fades, our players are introduced. Gadzooks Gimmelgorn is an energetic Gnome, drawn to his position as much out of curiosity about the contents of the carriage and its mission as by the gold. Two humans of noble birth are also among the guards. One, Sir John Baiste, is the heir of house Baiste’s titles, and is renown as a vicious warrior and resourceful woodsman. The other is Odo Esstlerd, the disinherited scion of the Esstlerd family, who was forced to become a member of an order of martial priests by circumstance, and no longer bears the privileges bestowed by his birth. The final and most mysterious member of this band is the Half-elf Heloise Strange. Unlike the other members, she is not obviously a warrior by training, and carries only a plant gatherer’s scythe for defense. It soon becomes apparent that this young maid has powers and abilities bestowed upon her by a pact she upholds with beings of fey magic, and what she lacks in strength is more than made up for by her cunning.

The trail to Phandalin is uneventful for days of travel. On the third day the party comes across two dead horses in the road, full of black arrows. Before the animals can be identified, goblins assault the caravan. The guards are more than up to the task, but Heloise, barely armored, sustains a deep arrow wound in her upper leg. In the aftermath of the scuffle, the horses are identified as none other that those of Gundren Rockseeker and his bodyguard! The pair had been traveling ahead to Phandalin when they were attacked by a goblin ambush. Sir Baiste quickly identifies a small trail leading off into the woods and signs that two bodies had been dragged along it. Before giving chase, Heloise petitions Jacobus for medical aid. She succeeds in convincing him to open the wagon where he retrieves a healing potion from a small box. While Jacobus is occupied with the alluring Ms. Strange, Gad stealthily peeks at the contents of the carriage. It appears to mostly contain mining supplies but there is a small locked box that seems to contain something important. In search of a key, Gad attempts to pick Jabobus’s pocket, but ends up only fondling the poor driver’s member in front of Heloise. The extremely awkward moment is cut short by Odo, who can not abide to wait a moment longer while his good employer remains in mortal peril. The party gathers to pursue the goblin trail, and gives intructions to Jeb and Jacobus to proceed to Phandalin with haste.

After a few hours of travel, they reach the mouth of a cave that obviously serves as the goblin base of operations. Gad dispatches the goblin sentries with relative stealth, but makes a small mistake resulting in a fight at the mouth of the cave. Suspecting that the goblins are already alerted, Odo attempts to draw them out with a challenge. When this fails he proceeds into the cave, where the party finds three ferocious guard dogs chained to spikes. Odo, thinking that the dogs will be easily put down in their chained state, approaches and swiftly kills the first of the dogs. However, he has moved too close in this, and the other two beasts quickly flank and pounce on him. They manage to bring him to the ground and begin to tear at his flesh, all while the party is still precious moments away. The dogs are eventually slain, but Odo is badly hurt. The Goblins at this moment trigger a trap constructed to defend their cave, unleashing a reservoir and sending a torrent of water out the mouth of the cave. The party is battered by this assault but is left with no time to recover, as all the goblins in the cave, including the monstrous bugbear Klarg, rush out to meet them in battle.

The fight is fierce. Before he can so much as swing his sword, Odo sustains a terrible injury, leaving him unconscious and bleeding on the wet cave floor. Gad does a little better, deploying a bag of ball bearings to trip up the goblin advance, However, he too sustains a powerful blow and becomes unconscious and within an inch of his life.

Baiste and Heloise fight on and attempt to aid their fallen comrades, but its too late for Gad who bleeds out in a dark cave among strangers. Baiste’s skillful archery is the end of Klarg who takes an arrow between the eyes, just as Odo begins to regain consciousness. The rest of the goblins are routed, in no small part due to the help of a mysterious fight in the back of the cave. Still terribly wounded, Odo investigates further into the cave, while Heloise and Baiste wait at the mouth, in fear for their lives. Odo finds the body of Gundren’s guard, who seems to have escaped captivity and killed many goblins before being slain. Further into the cave is a storage room, which contains a small treasure accumulated by Klarg as well as many boxes of supplies. Odo notes that the boxes all bear the mark of House Coster, a suspicious fact. Returning with the loot but no evidence of Rockseeker’s whereabouts, Odo and the surviving party members bury Gad and nurse their wounds. The next day, they depart again for the small town of Phandalin, unsure if their employer is even alive or who will be the next to perish for his clandestine endeavors.

The adventure log is where you list the sessions and adventures your party has been on, but for now, we suggest doing a very light “story so far” post. Just give a brief overview of what the party has done up to this point. After each future session, create a new post detailing that night’s adventures.

One final tip: Don’t stress about making your Obsidian Portal campaign look perfect. Instead, just make it work for you and your group. If everyone is having fun, then you’re using Obsidian Portal exactly as it was designed, even if your adventure log isn’t always up to date or your characters don’t all have portrait pictures.